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Tips From The Tub: What is Pixel?

Welcome back to our series on social media, #TipsFromTheTub , where I go over how social media has impacted our business in a BIG way.

The last entry we discussed the infamous #. Today we’re going to be talking about something that barely anyone knows about, and fewer people actually use.

Have you ever gone on to a favorite website of yours, and ads seem to follow you around everywhere you go online?

For me, it's socks. I LOVE funky socks. Star Wars, Avengers, Mickey, Donald Duck, Goofy, Batman, Superman and so many more. Seriously, my top dresser drawer is full of these socks. So I like to go on to websites and scope out the next ones I'm going to purchase or a set I'm dreaming about (they're $280 for the boxed set...but they're amazing!).

After I visit the websites however, then I see ads on Google, Instagram, and Facebook for them.

Is Alexa listening to me?!

Don't worry! Robots aren't taking over our lives. Why these ads are showing up is because they have what is called a Pixel. Many social media sites have them including Pinterest, YouTube, and most importantly, Facebook.

What a Facebook Pixel is a line of code that is specific to a single Facebook page. Each Pixel code is unique to each page. Your website developer knows where to put it on your website.

Once you have this code on your site and people visit your website, it tags users with all the pages they visit on your site. Then when you go to run Facebook Ads, you're able to actually target very specifically people that visited certain pages on your site but who didn't take action for whatever reason. Most likely when a customer visited your site, but didn't take action could be there wasn't anything strong enough to reel them in. Or maybe something happened while they were looking and their attention was pulled away to their family or work.

The Pixel is what brings them back. It gives much longer life to your online presence. And by targeting very specific people in a very specific way, you're able to lower your ad budget or spread it around more AND have a lower CPC (cost per click).